The Dallas Symphony Orchestra announced its 2026 Parks Concert Series, a lineup of free performances scheduled at parks and community venues across Dallas this summer.

The annual series begins Monday, May 25, with the orchestra’s Memorial Day concert at Flag Pole Hill.

“Sharing music in Dallas-area parks is a highlight of our summer each year,” Michelle Miller Burns, Ross Perot president and CEO of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, said in a statement. “There’s nothing quite like seeing our community come together to experience the joy of live music, and we are grateful for the opportunity to create these memorable moments across the city.”

Assistant Conductor Shira Samuels-Shragg, the Marena & Roger Gault Chair, will lead the Memorial Day performance. The program includes “America the Beautiful,” Morton Gould’s “Armed Forces Salute,” Copland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man,” selections from “Great American Songs,” the finale from Florence Price’s “Symphony No. 1,” and John Williams’ “Superman March,” among other pieces.

The orchestra said Samuels-Shragg will also conduct concerts at Fretz Park, Exall Park, Kidd Springs Park and Paul Quinn College.

According to the orchestra, all concerts are free and open to the public. The 2026 Parks Concert Series is supported in part by the City of Dallas Office of Arts and Culture and the City of Dallas Parks and Recreation Department.

The Memorial Day concert at Flag Pole Hill is scheduled to begin at 8:15 p.m. Monday, May 25, with fireworks planned for 9:15 p.m. In case of rain, the event will move to the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center.

Additional concerts are scheduled for:

• Tuesday, June 2 — Fretz Park, 6950 Belt Line Road
• Wednesday, June 3 — Exall Park, 3501 Live Oak St.
• Friday, June 5 — Kidd Springs Park, 711 W. Canty St.
• Saturday, June 6 — Paul Quinn College, 3837 Simpson Stuart Road

All performances are scheduled for 8:15 p.m.

More information is available through the Dallas Symphony Orchestra.

Miami’s Kaseya Center filled up with sombrero vueltiaos and Colombian flags to receive Carlos Vives’ Tour Al Sol on Saturday night (May 23). 

At 9 p.m. sharp, three large screens — including a round one in the center that represented a sun (hence the tour’s name) — lit up the sold-out arena: “We all need the sun to be happy,” Vives’ voice recited in an intro video.

In the conceptual two-hour show, the Colombian star took spectators on a journey through the solar system all the way to infinity, but “in my homeland, the sun hits incredibly hard,” he continued in the clip before he got on stage. 

Flaunting a black denim jacket and jeans, and his bouncy, signature dirty blond curls, Vives kicked off the concert with “Volví a Nacer,” followed by “La Bicicleta” and “Canción Bonita.” 

“How are you, Miami? The city of all,” he said. “For me, it is important to be in this city. Music took me around the world — not to become more famous, but to show my family what lay beyond Colombia. I have been singing for many years, and one learns who it is they sing for: my country, my land, my people, my region.”

Throughout the night, Vives, who was joined by 11 musicians, also serenaded fans with his vallenato and cumbia classics, including “La Gota Fria,” “El Cantor de Fonseca,” “Carito,” “Pa’ Mate,” “Cuando Nos Volvamos a Encontrar,” “Fruta Fresca” and “Robarte un Beso.”

Among his notable surprise guests were Niña Pastori for a performance of “Sombra Perdida”; Sergio George for “Si yo volviera a nacer”; Grupo Niche for the salsa-cumbia version of “La Tierra del Olvido”; and Fonseca for “Quiero verte sonreir.” 

ATLANTA – U.S. citizens arriving from three African nations are now undergoing health checks at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport as officials try to stop the spread of a deadly Ebola outbreak.

The screening program, which expanded to Atlanta on Saturday, requires travelers to complete health questionnaires and temperature checks before they can continue their onward travel.

Atlanta airport Ebola screening: Mandatory checks hit major hubs

What we know:

The CDC is partnering with federal agencies like U.S. Customs Border Patrol and the state health department to manage this effort. 

Travelers arriving from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda and South Sudan  must go through temperature monitoring and fill out a brief health questionnaire. Monday marks the third full day of these screenings at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.

If travelers are cleared to leave the airport, they will be monitored for 21 days by a state health department at their final destination. 

Officials are watching for symptoms such as vomiting, bleeding, diarrhea and fever. Anyone suspected of having the virus will be taken directly to a local hospital, which would very likely be Emory University Hospital.

Ebola screenings start at Atlanta airport

U.S. citizens arriving from three African nations are now undergoing mandatory health checks at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport as officials try to stop the spread of a deadly virus outbreak.

Local perspective:

Hundreds of thousands of soccer fans from around the globe are expected to fly into Atlanta, one of the host cities for the World Cup in just a few weeks.

Dr. Robin Dretler, an infectious disease physician at Emory Decatur Hospital and a board member with the Infectious Disease Society of America, said the expanded airport screenings will help prevent the virus from landing on U.S. shores. Dretler noted that health workers are doing the proper screening both at Dulles and for travelers coming directly to Atlanta.

Dr. Cecil Bennett, the medical director with Newnan Family Medicine Associates, emphasized that the most critical step is running these proper screenings before an individual ever boards an aircraft to travel to the United States.

What we don’t know:

It is currently unclear exactly how many passengers have been screened at the airport since the program began this week. Airport officials referred questions regarding tracking metrics to the CDC, but representatives have not yet responded to requests for comment.

The backstory:

At least 220 people have died from a rare strain of Ebola during this current outbreak, and there is no vaccine available. The screening measure was rolled out progressively across the United States to capture arriving traffic, starting first at Dulles Internation in Washington DC, expanding later to Bush International in Houston, and now to Atlanta.

Dig deeper:

Medical experts worry that drastic policy moves and federal funding cuts have severely reduced the nation’s capacity to track and curb global diseases. The Trump administration made deep budget cuts at the CDC, withdrew from the World Health Organization, eliminated the U.S. Agency for International Development and reduced health aid specifically targeted for the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Dr. Dretler stated that federal budget cuts mean there are fewer epidemiologists available to investigate deadly outbreaks and fewer resources to manage them. He noted that there are far fewer people at the CDC even to perform testing on biological samples, leaving the health infrastructure much more vulnerable than it was just two years ago.

Dr. Bennett added that the United States used to have boots on the ground anywhere a concerning virus emerged, but federal cuts to USAID and other critical agencies mean officials are now finding out about outbreaks after the fact. Dr. Dretler warned that gutting the ability to detect these threats leaves the public less on top of mutating risks, stating that the country is certainly much endangered from diseases anywhere else in the world.

What they’re saying:

Medical experts emphasize that the risk of catching the virus while flying on planes or walking through the terminal remains low.

“It’s not a virus that transmits easily like COVID; the coronavirus transmits easily by respiratory spread Ebola needs close contact,” said Dr. Barney Graham, who leads the David Satcher Global Health Institute at Morehouse School of Medicine and has worked on Ebola vaccines. He added that these types of outbreaks are most dangerous to healthcare providers because of the close contact required for patient care.

Federal officials state that the restrictions are based on previous screening successes. “We are providing the traveling public an assessment and next steps based regarding their on ward movement based on that screening,” Captain Satish Pillai, M.D. stated, noting that the CDC and Custom Border Patrol conduct this type of work successfully with state health departments.

While the screening may not be obvious because people taken away to a certain location, some international passengers noted that warning signs are visible in the terminal. “We saw a sign that said if you are travelling for certain countries be aware of symptoms,” said Mark Lippins, a traveler who returned from Scotland on Monday.